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Diary - Thursday 6 April 2006

6 April 2006

Keen-eyed readers will already have correctly predicted how today's Diary would begin - just as the Diary correctly predicted how last night's reserves match between Town and Scunthorpe would finish. Despite the club's official site spinning it into "one of their best performances of the season", Graham Rodger's supine second string slumped to yet another defeat at Blundell Park by the margin of two goals to one, as anticipated on this page yesterday lunchtime, with GTFC goalscoring legend Glen Downey finding the net yet again. Dave the Engineer has emailed to confirm that Manchester City trialist Ian Bennett took part in the match, as did Miles Chamberlain, who you will recall is supposed to be on loan at Worksop Town. "Me and Sib were talking to Miles mum' at half-time," writes Dave. "He stood out as best player for us. Barwick looked out of his depth and committed almost all the fouls we conceded. The goalie made two gaffes for the goals and Jermaine Palmer is nearly as good old Mike Jefferies [sic]." Until evidence to the contrary is forthcoming, the Diary is going to assume that Rob Murray kept his place in goal solely because the OS didn't fancy trying to spell a Polish name.

If fans of Grimsby Town Football Club cannot claim to support one of the giants of the English game, they have long been able to console themselves with the Mariners' presence in pub quizzes and football trivia questions. Even this humble claim to fame took a serious knock when the Football League let Rushden in, so that Town were no longer its only club that never plays at home. Then boring big team Manchester United announced that they were going to become even more boring and big by increasing the capacity of their stadium, threatening Old Trafford's record attendance figure of 76,962 for the FA Cup semi-final between GTFC and Wolves in 1939. The Glazer Blacksox are expected to break their own paltry record of 70,504 when new sections of the ground open this Sunday, but the Diary is cheered to note a Sporting Life piece explaining that even when the work is complete, the Traffordbowl's capacity will still not exceed the attendance for that hallowed cup game of yore. It is to be hoped that this detail of the story proves more accurate than its reckoning of when the Town/Wolves match took place.

On 29 November 2003 Grimsby Town lost at home to Tranmere in a game the club had designated "Ladies' Day", and the Mariners' official website combined these two circumstances in the memorable headline Ladies Day Ends "Bosoms" Up! On 16 June 2006 Grimsby Town will be staging an event featuring "a popular drag artist and 2 male strippers". Come a long way, haven't they.

April and May! So many birthdays! So why not treat the Grimsby fan in your life to a DVD of the Mariners' recent 5-0 thrashing by county rivals Lincoln? At just £12.99 from the Imps' official website, it would actually make quite a good joke present for a Town fan, might allow you to read what was actually written on Russ's flipchart at half-time, and is probably much better produced than any of the vids on offer at Blundell Park...

OK, I'll stop. That's all for the week from me, but return ye tomorrow as Friday's news is rounded up, summarised, and bought a pint of Bullion by the one and only Mr Guest Diary. Ta-ta and take care.